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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28435344">You Live With Ghosts.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katsala/pseuds/Katsala'>Katsala</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bite Me [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe- Ghost, F/M, Gen, Ghost Alfred Pennyworth, Ghost Stephanie Brown, Vampire Batfamily, Vampire Bruce Wayne, Vampire Tim Drake, vampire batman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:33:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>370</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28435344</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katsala/pseuds/Katsala</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Batfamily has a lot of ghosts, both metaphorical and literal.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Stephanie Brown/Tim Drake</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bite Me [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/447061</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>You Live With Ghosts.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The year was 1945. Lieutenant Alfred Pennyworth died far from home and was damn well proud of it. The blood from his gunshot wound soaked into the two pictures in his pocket, one of his father and one of Winston Churchill. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He had jumped between his commanding officer and a German bullet. He bled out in three minutes flat. And then he woke up.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He haunted London for years. He existed as smoke and mirrors, the faint outline of a man. He showed lost children shortcuts and walked young ladies home safely. He lived in a grandfather clock in his father’s house. Things were as well as they could be for a dead man.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And then his father passed away. Alfred waited for him to reappear, trapped between worlds like he was. He never did. The grandfather clock, an antique, was sold to an American family called the Waynes. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Alfred was using his minor telekinetic abilities to dust the library when the question came up.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Why didn’t they come back?” Master Bruce asked. He was sixteen years old but still just a child to Alfred. “Why couldn’t they be ghosts like you?”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Alfred snuck a surreptitious glance at the portrait of Thomas and Martha hanging on the wall. Martha, with her terrible sense of humor, had the painting specially made so that their teeth turned to fangs when one looked at them from the corner of one’s eye.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“No one knows precisely why ghosts are made. The process is thought to be random. But your father, through his research, found that vampires never become ghosts; no supernatural creatures do. Only humans.”</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Tim Drake screamed, three days after the funeral, when he saw Steph standing in his room. She flickered like candlelight, in and out of existence, her hair like a mane around her face. She wore the same purple sundress they’d buried her in. The scent of her blood was gone, the sound of her heartbeat silent. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Hey,” she said, reaching out her hand. </span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Hey,” he echoed back. He took it.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He felt her fingers, solid against his own, for just a few moments before she went intangible. She vanished before his eyes.</span>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Alfred!” Tim shouted. “I need your help!”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>(Alfred died in the Battle of the Bulge, I stan a guy who fights Nazis.)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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